Topline
“It Ends With Us” director Justin Baldoni says he and his wife are “healing” from the “painful” 18-month legal battle with his co-star Blake Lively in a video posted to Instagram Wednesday night, the first time he’s addressed the public since settling a lawsuit that accused him of retaliation against the A-list actress. (Click here for a full timeline of the legal saga).
Emily and Justin Baldoni attend the “It Ends With Us” New York Premiere on Aug. 6, 2024.
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Key Facts
Lively filed a lawsuit in December of 2024 accusing Baldoni and his production company of more than a dozen wrongs, including sexual harassment on set and orchestrating an online smear campaign against her after she spoke up (a judge later threw out 10 of her 13 allegations, leaving only claims of breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting in retaliation).
The two parties settled the lawsuit in early May—weeks before a trial was supposed to begin—and Baldoni had since remained silent outside of a joint statement from the pair’s attorneys in which they said they hoped the settlement “brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”
In a nearly five-minute video posted to his Instagram account Wednesday, Baldoni and his wife, Emily Baldoni, said they felt now was “the moment” to thank fans for their support and share they are “healing” from what Justin Baldoni called a “traumatic” experience.
Emily Baldoni said she and her family were the victims of “injustice” and said they’ve “had to wrestle with so many things… like, how could something like this even happen? Let alone disguised as a fight for women.”
Lively has not spoken about the settlement since May but was in the news this week for her absence from longtime friend Taylor Swift’s wedding after their relationship was reportedly damaged amid the “It Ends With Us” legal battle.
FULL TEXT OF JUSTIN BALDONI’S STATEMENT
JUSTIN BALDONI: Hello.
EMILY BALDONI: Hi.
JUSTIN: We have not done this in a while.
EMILY: We haven’t.
JUSTIN: So we have not spoken publicly for the better part of the last two years and it’s not because we haven’t had anything to say, because Lord knows we have, but it just felt like every time we went to make a video like this, we wanted to speak, something was telling us not to. It just didn’t feel like the right time and we were talking about it and feeling into it and praying about it and…
EMILY: And this feels like the moment.
JUSTIN: So here we are.
EMILY: That being said, there is so much to say and it makes it hard to speak. It makes it hard to figure out what is right for this specific moment.
JUSTIN: And we’re not going to say it all.
EMILY: Yeah, of course not. What does feel important is that we can genuinely say that we are sitting here today feeling immense gratitude for so many things and so many people and so many things that have happened to us.
JUSTIN: Gratitude has saved us.
EMILY: It has. And I also feel that it’s important as we say that, in that gratitude, it doesn’t negate the injustice and the pain that we have also felt in the last few years. And we’ve had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things, like how could something like this even happen? Let alone disguised as a fight for women. So much to unpack. And the truth is, reality is, is that there’s been a lot of trauma for us to move through as a family, which also makes it hard to speak.
JUSTIN: And we don’t even know this is the right thing to say, but we just know we need to share something. What I will say is that there have been so many painful things that have been spoken into existence.
EMILY: Untruthful.
JUSTIN: Over the last couple years. And that created so much noise and we didn’t want to add to the noise. So we just wanted to let the justice system run its course.
EMILY: And the truth and the facts have spoken for themselves. And here we are.
JUSTIN: Alright, so how are we doing?
EMILY: How are we doing?
JUSTIN: When people see us on the street, how are you? We are, we are healing.
EMILY: Mm-hmm.
JUSTIN: And if you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear. It looks different every day. And we have had to rethink for ourselves what is real and what matters.
EMILY: And it’s this.
JUSTIN: It’s this. It’s the kids. It’s our family.
EMILY: Yeah.
JUSTIN: It’s our friends. It’s our community who have been there for us.
EMILY: Our faith.
JUSTIN: It’s our faith.
EMILY: Mm-hmm.
JUSTIN: I think we’re closer and more devoted and steadfast in our faith than we’ve ever been. Also, and this has been on both of our hearts, there were so many of you who, when we didn’t have a voice, were our voice. You had a prayer at the very beginning which was that you just prayed that people would have discernment.
EMILY: Mm-hmm.
JUSTIN: And so many of you had discernment and you used your intuition and you trusted that. And you have given your time to fight for us. And thank you does not feel like enough. But we’re here in large part because of so many of you and all of our friends and family. And one thing that we’ve learned is that when God presses the reset button and everything else is stripped away, that that’s when love shows up.
EMILY: And it did.
JUSTIN: And we feel so loved.
EMILY: Mm-hmm. And there is so much more to say.
JUSTIN: And we will say it.
EMILY: That time will come. But for now we are going to focus on continuing the healing and hanging out with our kiddos and enjoying life.
JUSTIN: And ending this 4 minute and 47, 48 second video.
EMILY: Thank you.
JUSTIN: See you soon.
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